


It was an accident

by jperalta



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:01:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22762897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jperalta/pseuds/jperalta
Summary: Malcolm goes to visit his father in prison after the stabbing incident. Why does he go? He doesn't know, and he hates himself for it.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	It was an accident

Malcolm was walking down the hall to his father’s cell. It was a bad idea. He knew it was a bad idea - because it was _always_ a bad idea. But this time felt different. He wasn’t going there about a case, and he wasn’t going there to try to probe any information out of him about his childhood. So why was he going? The knot is his stomach was telling him to turn around. The heavy pulsing in his chest was begging him not to do it. Yet his feet kept pulling him forward. It was like a drug, and all it did was make him hate himself more and more. He kept thinking there was no more energy to hate himself more, but he kept being proven wrong. What was he doing here? The cell door opened. The guard locked him in.  
  
“Malcolm! My boy! How are you?” Martin bellowed heartily from his desk chair.  
  
On hearing his father’s voice, there was a stitch in his side and he tried to keep himself from falling by leaning against the door.  
  
“You don’t look well,” Martin said, surely feigning the concerned tone in his voice. “Let’s cut to it then - what’s the case? What’s the question you have for me?”  
  
But Martin saying this, and Malcolm remembering there was no reason, just made Malcolm feel more weak. His father’s eyes locked in on his son’s as he realized how pale Malcolm was. Malcolm slid to the ground, his knees shaking in front of his face. “There’s... no reason.” He let out with a shaky breath. “I don’t know why I’m here.”  
  
Martin straightened himself out and turned on a stern voice that made Malcolm feel more ill. “You mean to tell me - that you _stabbed_ me, in the _heart_ \- let us remember - and you have the gall to come back to see me? For ‘no reason’? Not even to apologize?”  
  
Malcolm wanted to vomit. “Why would I ever apologize to you?” He grumbled.  
  
Martin was hurt, but tried not to show it. He stepped forward, the chain holding him to the back wall tightening as he did. The motion made Malcolm lean back against the wall more, as if pressing hard enough against it could put him out of the room, out of this mindset, out of his father’s life forever. But something stupid in his brain was stopping him from doing that. His brain just wouldn’t let him be safe - there would always be within him this desire to let himself be destroyed. So he stayed in the room, on the ground, hardly out of reach of his father.  
  
“Honestly, Malcolm, I don’t know,” Martin said. “I don’t know why, after all I’ve put you through, you would ever want my acceptance.” Malcolm wrapped his arms around his knees and slammed the back of his head against the wall. Seeing his son hurt himself made Martin uneasy. “But I do know - or rather, I sense - that you need it. My approval, that is. That despite everything, I’m still your father. And you still want me to approve of you.” Malcolm shuddered. “And you despise that about yourself.”  
  
Malcolm huddled more into himself. He grabbed his pant legs in bunches, pulling them close to his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He needed to take something. He needed to be anywhere but in this room, yet he couldn’t find the power to leave.  
  
“What are those marks?” Martin said suddenly.  
  
Malcolm followed his father’s gaze down to the patch of skin that pulling up his pants had revealed - a crosshatch of red and white lines just above his ankle. This couldn’t be happening. Malcolm lied down on the cold floor and crossed his legs together, pressing his ankles against each other as if doing so would hide the truth. He wrapped his head up in his arms and drew his legs to his chest.  
  
“Malcolm?” Martin tried again.  
  
“Nothing,” Malcolm said while struggling to breathe. “Just... an accident. Please. Don’t...”  
  
“It doesn’t look like an accident, Malcom. You’ve hurt yourself intentionally?”  
  
He said it so tenderly and Malcolm let out a few tears. The Xanax was burning a hole in his pocket and he knew he should take it but he didn’t. In this moment he thought he deserved this - this inability to breathe, the cold floor, the pain, everything. He even deserved the horrible father he hadn’t gotten stuck with - he deserved it all.  
  
“I hate seeing you like this.” Martin sounded choked up. “I wish I could comfort you, but I...” He rattled the cuffs on his hands.  
  
They caught Malcolm’s eye and he turned to the guard. “Can you take those off?” He asked. The guard looked at Malcolm like he had just asked the guard to punch him in the mouth.  
  
“Um, I’m not really...”  
  
“Please,” Malcolm whimpered. “There’s something I need to know.” The guard studied the two of them as Malcolm pushed himself back into a sitting position. “Please.”  
  
After a minute the guard stepped towards Martin who seemed to be as surprised at the request as the guard was. Malcolm pushed himself up from the ground and stood right in front of his father. With wary hands, the guard unlocked Martin’s handcuffs. Martin rubbed his wrists a bit as Malcolm stood just beyond his reach, even if he extended his arms.  
  
“What are you doing, Malcolm?” Martin asked.  
  
“You said you wanted to comfort me,” Malcolm tried to keep his voice even but it would never stop shaking. “Do it. Do... whatever you want to.” They stared each other down. “I stabbed you in the heart. I almost killed you. What do you want to do to me?”  
  
Malcolm eyed the guard in the corner who seemed to be more interested in what was going to happen than he was concerned..  
  
Martin raised his arms, causing Malcolm to flinch slightly, and he rested his hands on Malcolm’s shoulders. Malcolm knew his father could sense how much he was shaking and they continued to look each other in the eyes. Malcolm felt his father’s hands inch closer to his neck. Martin had the power to kill him. He could strangle him until the guard intervened or if he wanted he could snap his neck right now - clean and simple. And Malcolm knew that. That’s why he put himself into this situation. He closed his eyes, as if willing his father to kill him, to get it over with, to put him out of his goddamn misery. _“Please,”_ Malcolm found himself whispering. He felt his father’s hands wrapped sturdily around his neck now, and heard the guard move around in the corner.  
  
But then Martin lowered his hands to Malcolm’s middle back and pulled him in close, and Malcolm lost consciousness for a split second as the two of them fell to the floor, Martin holding Malcolm on the way down. The guard came over, but there was nothing to do - Martin was nearly cradling Malcolm in his arms, a hand in his son’s hair. “I forgive you,” he said as Malcolm wept softly, only slightly aware of what was going on now. “I forgive you.”


End file.
